Odds & Ends

Dateline: Maine—An unidentified man suffered a heart attack during a professional conference. Fortunately for him, it was a conference on heart disease, and a cardiologist and three nurses who were speaking at the event rushed to his aid. “We were talking about angina and this man raised his hand and said, ‘I’m having it right now,’ ” Dr. William Phillips told The Sun Journal. Phillips asked one of the nurses to take the patient to the emergency room, but he collapsed right there in the conference room. The unidentified man wasn’t breathing and had no pulse. One of the nurses grabbed a defibrillator to help restart the man’s heart. Phillips and the cardiac nurses proceeded to perform CPR on the man in front of 100 curious onlookers. Phillips admitted to feeling the pressure. “I can’t tell you how I was hoping that guy was going to open his eyes, because, I thought, nothing could be worse if he dies right here.” The conference was being held next door to the Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston. Paramedics transferred the victim to the facility after he was revived. He is expected to make a full recovery. After the unexpected demonstration, Phillips continued with his lecture.

Dateline: California—The head honcho at the Legoland theme park fell victim to a rather appropriate practical joke after employees replaced his car with a full-size replica made entirely of Legos. The park’s general manager, Peter Ronchetti, went to the parking lot after work to climb into his blue Volvo XC60, only to find a plastic replica in its place. The prank was the work of colleague Tim Petsche, who stole Ronchetti’s car keys and used a forklift to move the 3-ton model car into the designated parking space. The lifelike 1:1 replacement was constructed from 201,076 Lego bricks. “We have a very fun, creative team here at Legoland California, and it really was the perfect prank. I can tell you that I won't leave my keys laying around ever again,” Ronchetti told NBCSanDiego.com.

Dateline: Wisconsin—Firefighters in Fond du Lac rescued a man after he got his hand stuck in his car’s gas tank while trying to retrieve a Snickers bar. Shortly after noon on Tuesday, June 28, police and firefighters were called to an automotive business on Brooke Street to save 20-year-old Earr Stokes. Stokes and his cousin, Tyrone Williams, had taken a car to the business to get a tire changed. “He happened to look in the gas tank. There was chocolate in there,” Williams explained to the Fond du Lac Reporter. Stokes “tried to get it out. He started picking it out with his hand, and his hand got stuck.” According to Williams, someone had removed the Snickers bar from its wrapper and jammed it in the tank. “It was just chocolate and peanuts,” confirmed Williams. Capt. Tony Knecht of the Fond du Lac Fire Department said firefighters resorted to cutting the car’s filler pipe in order to free Stokes’ hand. “The only concern was the possibility of a spark with the fuel tank,” said Knecht. Eventually, the candy-grabber was freed. He suffered some abrasions on his fingers but was otherwise unhurt. No word on what happened to the Snickers bar.

Dateline: Texas—According to a report in the Houston Chronicle, Deputy Constable Paul Armand made a routine traffic stop in the early morning hours of Tuesday, June 28, pulling over a vehicle that had no headlights on. Inside the Mazda 626, the deputy noticed that the driver had blood on his face. Also, the front windshield was smashed in. Also, there was a dead body in the passenger seat. The driver, identified as 45-year-old James John Onak, told the deputy he didn’t realize a dead body was in the passenger seat. Police say Onak struck 32-year-old Fadel Steadman with his car while driving down the Gulf Freeway in southeast Houston. After the high-speed collision, Onak kept driving for another three miles before he was pulled over. Houston police, who took over the investigation, estimate the accident occurred in the southbound lanes of Gulf Freeway around 12:30 a.m.—about 10 minutes before Armand pulled over Onak. Investigators say Steadman had parked his Ford Explorer in the emergency lane on the left side of the freeway after it broke down. Onak apparently struck Steadman with his vehicle as he passed, according to police, and the man’s body came completely through the windshield and landed in the passenger seat. Onak told Armand he thought he had hit something but wasn’t sure. While searching the freeway, another deputy constable located the Mazda’s license plate as well as what appeared to be Steadman’s leg at the scene of the accident. Onak was eventually arrested and charged with felony failure to stop and render aid involving a fatality, as well as driving while intoxicated.

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